Windows Media Player

You can use Windows Media Player—one of the most useful freebie features of Windows XP—to play sounds, play digital movies, or tune in to Internet radio stations. It’s the Grand Central Station for digital music and movies, as well as the junction for your hard drive, CD player, CD burner, MP3 player, and the Internet (from which you can download new music files and movie clips).

It’s easy to see how excited Microsoft is about version 8, since shortcuts connecting you to it are everywhere. It appears in two different Start menu locations (including the StartAll ProgramsAccessoriesEntertainment submenu) and on the Quick Launch toolbar. In any case, you can use a different method for opening Windows Media Player every other day.

Get Windows XP Professional: The Missing Manual now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.